Tonight’s my last night in the old Massachusetts apartment, into which I moved as half of a couple five years ago. My attorney dropped by this evening to spend some time with Tink and Zeugma, muttering dire imprecations and something about separation anxiety. Tomorrow morning I’ll take down the cat tree, scrub and vacuum, pack up the last few household items and the girls, and head four hours south.
And all of this still feels more like an ending than a beginning. I suppose that’s partly because I haven’t yet closed on the new house and I haven’t yet started the fall semester, and so this is a process of finishing things and closing things off, without that emotional sense of the opening-up of possibility.
Last things to put in the car tomorrow? The philodendron. The birdfeeder. And the girls in their cat-carriers.
Transitions are always difficult. I’m searching for the right plant.
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Your summer has seemed like a non-stop list of things to finish–no wonder you’re feeling as you are. When does your teaching year actually begin? Will you have any time in the next few weeks to sit down and savor things in your new home? Cheers!
Yeah, I’m feeling like I’m running a little ragged. Anyway: I’m out of the old place, still no furniture in the new place, but I’m here, with the girls. We arrived at about
220010 pm tonight, and I set Tink and Zeugma up with their food and water and litter boxes in separate rooms, because they’re anxious and frightened. I remembered that it’s important to let cats stay in one room at first, because big spaces are scary when they’re unfamiliar, but I’d forgotten how much they find the tiny enclosed spaces reassuring, and Tink nearly broke my heart when she reminded me.I set Zeugma up in the bathroom, where she immediately climbed up to the back corner of the top shelf of the linen closet, and I set Tink up in the front bedroom, not realizing I should have opened the closet for her, as well. So when I came back in to check on Tink, I couldn’t find her until I looked in her covered litter box, where she was sitting atop the pile of fresh litter I’d just poured in and looking nervously out at me. My poor scared girl.
I opened the closet and put a pillow on the floor at the back corner and leaned the ironing board over it, and that’s where she is now, with the door cracked.
My Callie didn’t come out of the closet for a whole month after we moved. I hope your girls are adjusting a little better by now. My regards.